A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 2073: A Castle to Keep - Part 4

Feeling something growing in his chest, some fragment of fire.

His eyes closed, he saw a boy stooping down to scoop up a crown that was not his.

He clenched his teeth. He wished he could have seen anything else. Yet the more he willed himself towards strength, the more it was that image that he drifted back to. It filled his mind with a vividness. Every detail of that moment, clawed into his brain for all eternity.

He remembered how his body had felt then. The way his arms had drooped, and his legs dangled uselessly, not even truly controlling the horse that he fought on. He remembered the hopelessness, the sense of pointlessness with each man that he killed. He remembered feeling as if he were somewhere else entirely – not on a battlefield, but in a hellish sort of dream.

He couldn’t remember if the fog had truly been that thick in actuality, but the mind made it rise up more thickly. The fear had spread through him, to the point that he longed for death. He had given up so completely that he felt not the slightest bit of strength left.

Every time he looked in the direction of Tiberius, he saw not a man, but a monster beyond comprehension. Dragon-like in magnitude, and winged creature like a dragon was, but with hundreds of snake-like heads instead. No majesty, just overwhelming, awful terror. A monster was the only word for it.

That monster dangled one its heads above the head of that boy.

So oblivious was he to the danger that he sat in. He threw something in front of the boy, that Tiberius did. A trap. It stunk of it. And like a mouse into the den of a snake, Oliver Patrick had wandered completely in.

He’d plucked up the crown, exactly as Tiberius had wished him to. And then, when he had placed it upon his head, there had been something else. Something that beat away the hopelessness that Fitzer had felt afflicting him.

A mighty wind that blew away the fog. A white light that beat away the fear. A burning desire, right in the heart of him. Something of the most intense, most delightful pressure, bearing down on him, turning him more into a precious jewel than a man. Under such a light, under such a pressure, everything he did glowed with the most acute rightness.

Once again, when he opened his eyes, the feeling was there. Inspired by the very enemy that he was fighting again, the passion flooded him. The memory was an impossible thing to overcome. He could not turn against it. It seemed more the revelation of a prophet, dreaming of the Gods, than it did a memory of reality.

Pounding his blood, beating his exhaustion away. Fitzer as he was then – Fitzer at his best. He reached for, trying to find what he was. That thread of Command, the same colour that Oliver Patrick had turned them all. The pure whiteness.

Then, he animated his men with it.

"Men of mine," he said, his voice hard, his words firm. "We have a duty that goes beyond what logic would ask of us. We are given an obstacle of impossible quality – and still, must we overcome it. If our strength is insufficient, then we will reach for more. If our legs are exhausted, and our arms robbed of energy, then we will find energy from elsewhere. If there are not enough of us, then we will find old soldiers from the other realm, and bid that they fight alongside us."

"We, men of the Emerson army, owe our King a duty. To the very death, we promised him. If our King’s life is in danger, naught matters. The limitations that we thought to exist – we abandon them. The only thing that matters is our duty. By whatever means necessary, men of mine, we will overcome the great General Blackthorn, and the men that he puts in front of us."

Whatever his men were thinking, Fitzer knew not. He knew not the state of his own heart either. He felt as if he were caught up in the flow of something that he had no control over. A dark, churning black river that carried him without remorse towards his destiny. What that destiny looked like, he had no idea – but he could sense that small bit of impending doom. The eerie feeling that the churning river in which he rode would soon collapse into a waterfall.

To Claudia, he said his apologies.

’Mistress of Progress,’ he told her, speaking all of his heart in the span of a short few moments, just before he committed to the charge. ’Forgive the dishonour that I have committed. See what is my heart, as I know you do. Understand that which I wrestle with. See the fear, see the jealousy, and know that I know it too. I am not your purest creature. I have wronged, and I have made mistakes. I have dishonoured my wife, in sleeping with other women. I have dishonoured my allies, in at times taking glory from them. I have made mistakes, but I have attempted, all this while, to reach the pinnacle.

You honoured me in allowing me to pass through the Second Boundary, Mistress Claudia. I shall never forget that. To have felt your Blessing, despite knowing myself to be corrupt. I felt myself forgiven, and I felt my destiny to unfold. That moment, in my late twenties, when it was all finally worth something – I shall never forget that, for as long as my spirit holds any sentience. You have honoured me, and I owe my life, beyond even my duty to my King – I owe it to you. See the choices I have committed. See the reasoning behind them. And now, Mistress Claudia, forget them all, for I owe this final battle to you.’

A feeling inside him, as if something had clicked. Words he ought to have said a long time ago. That strange feeling of heaviness in his heart. The sensation that he was chasing his tail, and with every time that he went round, he felt himself to be a worse man, more crooked, more thoughtful.